The Oakham Curry Club (OCC) is one of the worlds most respected reviewers of Indian cuisine. With multiple international franchises, we relentlessly scour the globe in pursuit of the crispiest poppadoms, the tastiest sauces and spiciest curries.

There's a new Uncle in town and he Khan cook!

Uncles come in many shapes, sizes, and styles the most popular for nieces and nephews being the dashing and playful ones so when the OCC turned up to Khan Chacha, Uncle Khan, the OCC children were giddy with anticipation.

Khan Chacha is the newly launched Persian Indian culinary experience by the colorful Jibin Arjunan and his partners Dipika and Raghu. The restaurant is located in the heart of Shanghai, perched high on the 6th floor of WestGate mall.

The restaurant sparkles and is stylishly furnished with a mixture of copper and gold ornaments providing a Middle Eastern and North Indian vibe, all in all this provides a high end feel with an open layout allowing customers to see the chefs at work. The location though means it is somewhat open to mall shoppers and perhaps this is why their lowest score was for atmosphere at 7.0.

The soul of this restaurant though is the passion the owners have for cuisine, a self-style mixture of gourmet levantine and comfort food. Jibin’s culinary background starts with Delhi street-food, moves to Kuwait and Persian dishes, then on to Manila with Alain Ducasse’s institute for French Cuisine before settling in Shanghai. This variety is evidenced in the menu which takes local ingredients, a twist of modern all on classic and faithful Persian / Indian dishes. This provides a whole selection of scrumptious tastes across the menu.

OCC member’s highlights were the “Finger Pakodas” mix kale and louts roots to produce a lovely gentle starter for the palate. “Butter Chicken” Delhi style (Dilliwala), using the juiciest tomatoes and imported Goan cashew nuts to produce a highly balanced dish of flavors and spice. The excellent Saag Panner uses local red amaranath which is popular with the taste buds across the multi-cultural clientele, an achievement in itself and thus an impressive dish. The fish curry, is inspired from a Kerala recipe using rice appams and banana leaves again it balances flavors with the correct degree of spice. The final dish of the night and perhaps their visually most impressive is the “lamb biryani” which is a Lucknowi version from Northern India, it lets the lamb and rice fuse together under a pastry bun, producing an explosion to the senses not just your tastes buds. Unsurprisingly the quality score was high at 8.4.

Whatever shape, size of style uncle’s come in they always care and our Uncle Khan provided this in abundance. The service and attention to detail for both customers and OCC members was appreciated and well recognized. Their service and customer care were an impressive 8.2 and 8.8 respectively.

The value score came in at 7.3 reflecting the OCC’s appetite for trying many dishes, we note that Uncle Khan has provided lunch menus and deals in recent weeks as they balance the price and experience.

There is passion at Uncle Khan’s that provides an excellent experience with a varied menu and some truly excellent dishes. We welcome this dashing and culinary playful Uncle to Shanghai’s curry scene and wish them all the best.